`Sancho' < Sanctius; Panza < lat. pantex

[Larry Trask]

On Tue, 16 Mar 1999, Javier Martinez wrote:

> LT wrote

> > at a Basque name, though not necessarily one of ultimately Basque
> > origin.  This name is totally opaque in Basque, and I am aware of no
> > plausible etymology for it.

> < lat.  Sanctius?

Oops -- I meant to write "no plausible etymology for it *in Basque*",
since I haven't looked at any attempts to find Romance etymologies.

I don't know whether a Latin *<Sanctius> would be a plausible source for
Spanish <Sancho>.  In any case, <Sancho> should have been taken into
Basque as *<Santxo>.  Since the observed <Antso> points to an earlier
*<Santso>, we would have to suppose that the unrecorded *<Santxo> was
interprteted by the Basques as a diminutive, and that *<Santso> was
created from this by back-formation.

The point of this last is that Basque forms diminutives by
palatalization.  Hence, for example, <Jose> `Joseph' --> <Joxe> `Joe';
<Martin> `Martin' --> <Matxin> `Marty'; and so on.

There exist apparent parallels for such back-formation.  For example,
the widespread word <motz> `lopped off, stubby, short' has an attested
variant <motx>, and appears to have been borrowed from the synonymous
Castilian <mocho>, with <motz> resulting from back-formation.  (Both
<tz> and <ts> palatalize to <tx>, so a back-formation might give either
result.  In the case of *<Santxo>, though, only *<Santso> could be
formed, and not *<Santzo>, since Basque has sibilant harmony: a word may
contain only apical sibilants (<s, ts>) or only laminal sibilants (<z,
tz>), and not both.)

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk